Guest post by Dr Pyoung Jik Lee. Close your eyes in an intensive care unit (ICU), and you will hear a strange kind of orchestra: the steady hum of a ventilator, the rhythmic beep of a monitor, footsteps on vinyl flooring, a phone ringing at a nurses’ station, and, somewhere in the background, two clinicians […]
ICU delirium
Noise in the ICU
Noise pollution In recent years, several acoustic studies have noted that the sound environment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is noisy and demanding. The noises are unpredictable and unexpected as they have numerous sources. The extent of the problem is not yet fully understood, but the impact of noise pollution in patient rooms in […]
Being critically ill and surrounded by noise – doctoral thesis
On November 21st Lotta Johansson of Gothenburg university defended her doctoral thesis at the Ph.D. disputation held at Academic. The title of the thesis is “Being critically ill and surrounded by sound and noise. Patient experiences, staff awareness and future challenges“. The aim of the thesis was to show how critically ill patients experience sound […]
Sleep in the ICU – review of current knowledge
A new article on the current knowledge of sleep disturbances in the ICU was featured in the latest issue of Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavia. Sleep disturbances in the ICU environment are a significant problem and have many underlying causes. However are a difficult phenomenon to observe due to the physical status of the patient group. This […]
The sound environment in ICU
A newly published study from Sweden describes the audible atmosphere of an intensive care unit patient room over a 24-hour period. The study aimed to investigate sound level data and compare patient recollection of the sound environment during the stay. The study showed that sound levels are exceeding 55dB between 70-90% of the time, which […]
